Kealakekua Bay-Captain Cook - kayak diving?

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jzipfel

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we will be in Kona in a few weeks and I think I came up with a brilliant idea to keep my diving and non-diving family members all together. I'd like to know if anyone has any thoughts or experience on the following:

My wife and oldest son don't dive, but other son and I do. I hate spending entire days away from them while diving, although they are very tolerant of it. I was thinking we could rent some double, sit on top kayaks, put them in at Kealakekua bay and paddle out for a while. Then if the urge strikes my son and I we could get in and dive for a while. Maybe some spinners will appear or the wall along the north side. My other son and wife could paddle around and then pick us up when we surface. Paddle around some more, maybe out to Capt Cook monument, stay out in the water and dive some more, again get a pick up or they may even snorkel the area. Then paddle back.

Well is this brilliant or asinine?
 
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When we were there a couple years ago they had really tightened up on the kayak rentals. You pretty much had to go with an approved group. Probably ways around that but it didn't seem worth the effort at the time.
 
It's been a couple of years for me as well, but when last there, I'm pretty sure the parking lot was closed unless you were an insider, and there was no private launching of kayaks. As well, even before that it became against the rules to land your kayak so to dive you had to tow the thing around, or let it drift.

I had heard the policies were still in a state of flux so it'd be good to hear how it is now.

It used to be a fun way to do a couple of tanks, but frankly there's not much to recommend diving around the main tourist area. The cove there is shallow enough to just snorkel, and the drop-off is steep enough and dead enough that there's not a whole lot of interesting area. I never tried out to the south around the point, always a bit rough.
 
Is your trip done already? I have explored same idea and have info if you or other readers are still interested

We went in July, but didn't do the kayak thing. Wife and older son just wanted to hit the beaches. We still did some shore diving though. We will be back in December so this is still an option since the bay is protected and relatively calm in the winter.

We have been to the area many, many time so are well aware of the restrictions but if you have any thoughts/ideas let me know.
 
We were there six months ago and you can still kayak out to the monument on your own but no landing of the boats unless your with a commercial outfit.
You can walk up and check out the monument but the boat has to stay off the shore.
We rented our own boats and launched on the south side of the cove and paddled over. The rental company takes care of the permit for you btw.
Your wife can handle the boats just fine. We tied three together and took turns dragging them around, no problem.
I had the same thought as you when I visited "This would be cool to dive", then the cattle boat rounded the corner and I was done.
We had a better time diving everywhere the snorkel boats didn't go.

This is the boat that changed my mind about diving that spot. It was this full when it showed up.

img_0535_0168.jpg
 

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